"We are not called to make a sick world well. We are called to act well." These words of Arthur G. Gish, as found in his "The New Left and Christian Radicalism", are intended to help us to get out from under the weight of the world. A weight, it seems, like the cartoon depiction of "Fat Albert" sitting atop an adversary. The more one struggles and squirms, the quicker a depletion of strength. And, of course, resistance stymied outward becomes depression inward. The only calling, then, is to make a sickened person numb enough to not care about despair.

But how can we act well, as opposed to simply getting through the day, when we are over-medicated inwardly and over-focused outwardly? Fat Albert and the weight of the world don't want to budge without a cry for Uncle Acquiescence.

Rather than fighting something bigger than ourselves, let alone making war on terror and crime, can we wait in the silence of suffocation long enough to find a different kind of strength and purpose. A strength and purpose that does not offer a pseudo-stairway to heaven, but a doors-way to break on through to the other side - where we might just find the Kingdom of God waiting.